latitude

One of the two coordinates (the other being longitude) used to locate a position at sea; marked in degrees north or south of the equator, from 0 degrees at the equator to 90 degress north or south at the poles; one degree of latitude = 60 minutes of latitude; as one minute equals a mile, a common saying at sea is "a minute's a mile". Latitude is comparable to the x-axis on a graph.